Which to use
“earth” and “écarts” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,470
- “earth” frequency rank
- #9,418
- “écarts” frequency rank
- 27888
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | earth | écarts |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Terre sur laquelle nous vivons. | Pluriel de écart. |
Where the eye mixes earth and écarts
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. earth runs 5 letters (VVCCC) against écarts's 6 (VCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between earth and écarts
A purely visual mix-up. earth (\ˈɝθ\) and écarts (\e.kaʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27888, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
earth is recorded at frequency rank #18,470, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈɝθ\. écarts is at rank #9,418, tagged as anoun, pronounced \e.kaʁ\.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 27888, this pair ranks #326,146 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of earth vs écarts
Shared letters: art. Private to "earth": eh. Private to "écarts": csé.
"earth" · 5 letters · shape VVCCC · "écarts" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- earth ← aerth · earht · earrth · earthh · eartth · eatrh · erath
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "earth" for "écarts" ever safe?
Frequency check: "earth" vs "écarts" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "earth" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "écarts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #326,146 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "earth" and "écarts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "each vs earth". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #326,146 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.